The level of security clearance I'd received for my legal job had been notable comparative to what I had originally expected the job to entail. There had been a brief background check delving as far into my history as the United States had documented. Thankfully, there was a lot that was hidden graciously in between the lines of whatever it was that I might have done in the past. Many of my transgressions were seamlessly covered by my regular employers who, on some level, wanted to see me succeed as a professional and in the legal sense of the word. With numerous options available to me after my immediate completion of my degree, I had been offered opportunities to meddle in any kind of affair you might drum up. The doctoral degree had been labeled Forensic Psychology, something that I may have never stumbled upon had I not adopted this city as home. The program had taken me less time to complete than others as I had experience applicable from multiple personal experiences that allowed me to gain an advantage over the studies of other students. Completing the program meant that I would be the first in the entirety of my family to have attended school, let alone to finish a much higher degree. In retrospect, I don't think the PhD was truly necessary to adopt a job, a career, or anything really because I had an affinity for language that came naturally. I was born in an area where it was necessary to speak more than one language, and by adopting others it was even more beneficial to my survival or the survival of my family. My first language, Afrikaans, was fluid and more natural to me than the English I spoke on a daily basis. Dutch came next, and after Dutch there was Arabic. I knew vague tidbits of other languages which simply added weight to a resume I probably didn't need when head hunters came calling for contracts. The clearance I'd obtained for the job I recently signed a contract for allowed me to slip into a new role, but one that required the use of all of my skills; legal, illegal, magical, and human.

My coworkers at the last company I had worked translating for had demanded my presence at the very restaurant I had leveled only weeks prior to the dinner they coordinated in honor of their protégé moving forward. Only several of them knew what my spare time was committed to in that I was for hire in an entirely different sense than my daily translating and analysis. Those several men were present, though they weren't entirely pleased to see that I had a promotion of sorts and wouldn't be readily available for their nefarious needs on a consistent basis. I didn't mind. There were far easier ways to obtain work in that field and I was beginning to understand that with the use of my degree and a job that fell under a security clearance would eventually allow me to use my more ... illegal, if you will, skills to support my more... legal ones. They littered the seats surrounding the table I had arrived at, their eyes meeting mine with a level of aversion that I met with a slow, charming smile that revealed none of the malice behind my lips.

With dinner served quickly and drinks in abundance, it was very quickly made obvious to me that I wasn't going to get out of the dinner with any sort of haste. The establishment had been rebuilt very nicely, though it was reminiscent of the restaurant that had been on the same ground before my last ... haphazard job gone wrong on the very same premises. The waitresses were the same, the bartender the same. The menu was close to its predecessor. Similarity caused such a stench of boredom that with every rise and fall of my chest I could taste an ashen staleness that often went hand in hand with stagnant situations. As if complimentary to such monotony, my old coworkers had found themselves jovial in their jests fueled by their drinks while mine stayed uncomfortably full, swirled occasionally around in its glass. It was the same bourbon and sprite I often ordered, but it tasted dull and void of any bite that I had begun to need in order to make it out of the dinner with my sanity. And you know, possibly my eyeballs because knifing them sounded more pleasant than remaining at the table.

Even if I do like being the center of attention.

Instead I excused myself, needing to get something stronger from the bar and finding myself impatient enough that I wasn't prepared to wait until our blonde waitress returned to take my most recent request. At the bar, I gently loosened the tie that felt suffocating, drumming my fingers almost as impatiently as I had been tapping them on my knee beneath our table.

"Does it really take that fu... " Oops, manners. "How long is it going to take you to take that bottle of Glenmorganie scotch, and pour it into a glass?" I could surely have lifted the glass bottle by merely looking at it, accidentally knocked the bartender in the head with it, and simply taken the bottle with me, but that seemed to be the opposite of good taste. Instead, I remained standing at the bar with my fingers drumming ominously as I waited for the shithead to get his... Shit together, and actual do his job.